Shauhnessy Got to absolutley love the contraian "curly red-head".!!! Analysis is frequently emotionally driven. Jerry Remy hit a rope in his direction; Burleson respected Piniellas baseball guile and held at second, minimizing the damage. I never really considered McDonough a columnist, but more of an information guy. It was inside baseball before there was inside baseball: the behind the scenes of major trades, the trends shaping the game, insights on players never before even whispered. Wetzel is one of the classiest and most talented writers currently covering the NFL. In fact, not much in the Boston sports media hasnot even the photos on the wall. Thats the way I did it.. If you happen to be a big fan of the New York Giants, Ralph Vacchiano should be your main man. You have to not give a shit about ultimately looking like an idiot or saying a lot of things that you regret.. . The primary goal for reporters seems no longer to be merely producing great and interesting work. Fitzgerald and Montville in that order, and no one else on that list comes close when it comes to informative and witty writing that is must read. Joseph Lipchitz named managing partner at Saul Ewing in Boston February 22, 2023 at 4:59 p.m. Attorney Joseph Lipchitz, a former military prosecutor and ace media lawyer, has been named. His knowledge of the sports world could not be challenged, Ray Fitzgerald- The Grandaddy of them all. Dave Cowens was renowned for his intensity, but he played with particular passion in Game 7 of the 1974 NBA Finals versus the Milwaukee Bucks because he felt he had let his team down with a 5-for-19 showing in a losing Game 6. Currently, he works as a sports business reporter at The Boston Globe in Greater Boston. So, a focused Cowens responded with a stellar 28-point, 14-rebound game as the Celtics prevailed, 102-87. I always enjoyed Jackie MacMullan,but I didnt see her listed. Was Leigh Montville the first person to refer to Bob Irsay as Tiger? Will McDonough and I flew with the team and often played racquetball with the players. Michael, his mother scolded him when her son emerged to board the team bus, youre gonna give me a heart attack.. To this day, I remember it. Dan Kadar is a rather underrated individual on Twitter. Jackie MacMullan remembers Larry Bird once saying, Bob Ryan, hes as famous as we are. Butover time, the citys sports punditocracy has expanded to include not just the truly wise, like Ryan, but any sportswriter willing to blow hot air. What more could you ask? Finn, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air. Another name for consideration, though how about Bud Collins? Some potential names you might considerand this is by no means a complete list. A fellow Boston Globe writer named John Powers once noticed that Ryan didn't include many quotes in his game stories. There was nothing like it and there probably wont be either since the nuggets of info he dispensed he was able to keep to himself all week. Peter Gammons invented the Sunday notes column, and as a baseball writer/reporter, he was peerlessabsolutely peerlessin the 70s and 80s. Over the next nine years, each team was crowned champion. The worst of the worst? A great place to learn and grow as a writer. McAdam was perhaps the most strident critic, at one point calling Okajima cowardly. The obvious question is whether this needs to be reported. Kaese who wrote for the Globe long after the Transcript folded. While politics, finances and other areas of interest are certainly prominent on Twitter, nothing is as huge as the world of sports. Plus her basketball writing was the best. Minutes earlier, I had stood in the back row of the Superdome as the St. Louis Rams roared back from a 17-3 deficit to tie the game. Chad Finn tells us that Massarotti is no dummy, and I believe that. The mood on Main Street outside the Lake Placid arena that afternoon in 1980 was defiant, almost militant. Dave Cowens and the Celtics outlasted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1974 NBA Finals. Erudite, clinical, and with a wide range of interests beyond baseball, which he wasnt afraid to bring to the column. For the second consecutive year, Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy submits a Hall of Fame ballot with only Jeff Kent marked, ignoring David Ortiz. Bestmuddy waters these days. }Customer Service, Vice President, Innovation & Strategic Initiatives, Senior Assistant Managing Editor, Express Desk, Senior Assistant Managing Editor, Production, Senior Assistant Managing Editor for Audience Experience, Senior Assistant Managing Editor for culture, talent, and development, Assistant Managing Editor, Hiring and Development, Manager of Programs and Operations, Opinion, Love Letters Columnist and Features Writer, Director of Visual Strategy for Globe Opinion, Editor, Sunday real estate and realestate.boston.com, Assistant Business Editor for News Innovation, Senior editor for multimedia storytelling, Editor of the Great Divide education team, Editor-at-large in Globe Opinion, former editorial page editor. I dont need the players sugar coated, but neither do I want to be besieged by sordid little details, daily. I don't know how this man gets any writing done with tweeting so frequently, but it happens. The extra staffing is important to help the paper fulfill what Sullivan says is its mandate in this digital age: to serve the Web and print at the same time.. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. When you want to know about the business side of the NFL, there is no better man to follow on Twitter than Darren Rovell. I freely admit to liking his old weekend thoughts/notes. interesting angles. All yo have to do is read Shank or Nickles dreadful impersonation of his Baseball Notes after he left to see that he was different and what he did was deceptively difficult. You are basically obligated to follow him if you're an NFL fan. My list of those inducted on the first ballot would match yours Montville, Fitzgerald, Ryan. Somewhere, I still have a yellowed copy of the last column he wrote for the Globe before he left for S.I. But in 1976, at 10-3, they had already clinched a playoff spot and were headed to Tampa Bay for the final regular season game. The ESPN Boston property is sadly afflicted with autoplay video, one of the least popular inventions of the modern web. Like Murray Chass and other traditionalists, Cafardo is aggressively old school, with his antipathy towards modern analysis regularly on display. He deserved world wide aclaim Dont know if I could pick a third, but if I had to, it would be Egan or Ryan. It would be a bad idea to follow me on Twitter. What made the game special for me was the local angle four of the players were from Boston University. And its not just the citys core sports personalities that havent changed much. Witness the limitations of its technology infrastructure. Ater he retired joe became an official score keeper at Fenway.__My other choices are Timmy Horgan, Peter Gammons and Joe Fitzgerald. Loved the fact that he could really master the but, after all, its just a game air without getting pompous about it (Hello to the Toy Department referencers out there!). Leigh Montville. Not include Tim Horgan.Are you nuts or just too young to appreciate a good writer.Look up some of his columns.A great writer who never distorted the facts.He was the vboice of the fan in his era.Ray Fitzgerald was also another great writer. His connections were solid. Which is to his credit. The examples and perspective in this article, Last edited on 10 November 2022, at 21:30, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "James Jerpe Dies; Well-Known Writer; Friend of Sportsmen, Firemen Passes Away", "Bears just can't seem to win with Jimmy or Jay", "Author seeks to link three Belleville murders", "Guillen's validation sealed with a kiss", "Red Fisher: Remembering great friend and Haps legend Dickie Moore, dead at age 84", "Mariano makes it interesting, but isn't it always? The good old days are gone as far as Boston columnists are concerned. In the playoffs against Oakland, the Patriots famously got robbed (at least according to anyone with Boston blood) when Sugar Bear Hamilton was called for roughing the passer. During the 30s, 40s and 50s no true Boston Sports fan went to bed before reading The Colonel I fondly remember the Will McDounough Sunday column. Few people provide quality draft content on Twitter like Josh Norris. However, they are also some of the funniest sports-related content on the planet and definitely worth a read. Historical sportswriters [ edit] Les Biederman Furman Bisher Jimmy Cannon Henry Chadwick George W. Daley Dan Daniel Pierce Egan Charley Feeney Larry Felser Mary Garber Halsey Hall Arnold Hano Sid Hartman W. C. Heinz Zander Hollander Jerome Holtzman James Jerpe [1] Leonard Koppett Sam Lacy John Lardner Ring Lardner Fred Lieb Tim Murnane Jack Murphy The product hasnt been remotely Polly Anna-ish, but the criticism and concerns were always grounded in fact. This isnt to say that this was the case with McAdam, but the context here is important: fans by and large do not care nearly as much about players not talking to the media as the media do, for obvious reasons. Todd McShay is the other draft wunderkind for ESPN. He was football coach at CM for 19 years and although his '72 team lost to Swampscott High, they rebounded to win Division 2 titles in 1973 and 1978. In 2010 going on 2011, the Boston Heralds content management system is still producing stories with a second page that consists of one sentence. He does a fantastic job of providing key information on players and provides great insight into what they excel at and what they could improve. He would lecture me on the evils of camel cigarettes that i smoked for some 45 years. If you want to see some of Zerkle's crazier side, I recommend you follow his alter-ego, @PUNTE. Montville and Ryan. WEEI.coms Alex Speier, who specializes in incorporating advanced stats into articles meant for the average fanand who is therefore one of the citys few inventive sportswriterstold me that everything has changed now that readers no longer depend on print for all their news. he wrote for the traveler and herald. He passed away in January 2003 and was best known for his coverage of the Patriots and the National Football League. Thats what I planned to say if I got the chance to meet him at the Hot Stove, Cold Beer event in April. I wanted to talk about what a bitter pill it was, Lucchino recalled months later. Engaging and open to dialogue; hes responded to a couple of mentions on Twitter, which in my experience is rare. The players, who called him "Scoop," alternately respected and resented the Boston Globe writer. What made the game special for me was the local angle four of the players were from Boston University. Shaughnessy has now written. It sounds absurd looking back, it was! Were in agreement. He'll tell you exactly what he thinks about a situation, which is usually correct, and he does a great job at interacting with followers. At present, the Herald looks to be largely treading water, doing just enough to keep from drowning but not enough to adapt itself to an increasingly competitive market. Demonstrates an overreliance on certain friendly sources (e.g. The Globe has as proud a history in sportswriting as any paper in the country, from the aforementioned Gammons to Ryan to Montville to MacMullan. While Brian McCarthy isn't technically a sportswriter, he definitely acts like one on Twitter. Long experience in the market. So thats that. How did Hagerty make this list? Hes transformed himself from a sharp Patriots reporter for the Herald into a contrarian media personality. His radio cohost, the former Red Sox reporter Tony Massarotti, has done the same thing, if somewhat more shrilly. There are times when Albert Breer gives more information about his personal life than you want, but it's definitely worth hearing about his latest ski trip to get his inside NFL information. #ada-button-frame { Whenever you have enough respect to garner the nickname "The Rev," you know you are good at what you do. The streets of Cambridge are flooded, and not because of the rain. If these was one man to follow on Twitter, my vote would go to the legendary Rich Eisen. And an honorary mention of Will Mc. There is willful mediocrity alongside innovative brilliance, with the inevitable faux-populist vitriol bubbling to the surface every so often. Clockwise from left: Marvin Hagler; Dave Cowens and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; a crowd; Kevin Garnett; the 1980 Miracle on Ice; and Dave Roberts' iconic steal. And for the record, he was very gracious about my verbal implosion. Michael Lombardi is one of the most well known NFL sportswriters there are. My parents made me a Red Sox fan, but it was Peter Gammons that made me a baseball fan. He has a fantastic sense of humor and is fearless about taking shots at whoever deserves it. Matt Miller has been covering the NFL draft for years, and with such a wealth of knowledge, he's definitely worth following on Twitter. (LogOut/ display: none; You know that this man is obsessive about fantasy football because he's already starting to put out fantasy mock drafts one week after the Super Bowl. When Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy get animated about a subjectparticularly basketball and baseball, respectivelythere are no two writers whose work Id rather read than these two men. He spent the beginning of his career actually working for NFL teams and has since turned back to writing about them. his willingness to back up the truck for Gonzalez occasionally skews towards fan and away from hard evaluation. Hes opinionated, but rational. Its got to be Fitzgerald, Montville 1& 2. Which is why his inability to adapt remains a tragedy. If a team nicknamed the Patsies for most of my life could, then why not the Red Sox . He also loves his mom, which is a great thing. Players love him, fans love him and other journalists love him. That type of information is priceless to true NFL fans. One of the best things about Mortensen on Twitter is how much he interacts with fans. Differentiated content within the local market. The second thing I like about him is his commentary to what other people say. A grave injustice. Weaknesses: The move to CSNNE has lowered his visibility for this fan. Cheesy to reply to your own message, but for Ryans most emblematic column, Id pick I-saiah. Overall, hes a tremendous asset to the market and one that I look genuinely forward to reading, even if I dont really appreciate the baseball cards. i remember those columns as being classicwould love to re-rea that one from 84. The US hockey team was about to play the Soviet Union in the Olympics but their countrymen seemed ready to go to war. He does a fantastic job covering the Patriots and the rest of the information he provides is generally awesome also. While he retweets quite a bit, Caplan also does a good job at providing depth into team situations and team needs. Bowen tweeted what a stiff arm from Williams felt like. As I stood beside him on that February night, it occurred to me: Barrier-breaking journalist Lesley Visser is seen covering Patriots training camp in 1976, her first year on the beat. Winning titles was nothing new for John Havlicek and Don Nelson, but for Cowens, veteran rebound ace Paul Silas, and young backcourt stars Jo Jo White and Don Chaney, it would be a career first. Thats the way I went into this fight. Come on, he's the NFL Commissioner for crying out loud. Not only are his relationships within the organization extensive, his understanding of the clubs history relative to individual players is of real benefit, because much of whats happening with the Red Sox at present is the product of multi-year planning cycles. What makes him so enjoyable to follow is the way he interacts with his fans. Weaknesses: Perfectly embodies and argues the voice of the angry talk show caller. Patriots beat reporter and writer for the @BostonGlobe. No question is stupid or ridiculous to him, and you can tell he truly loves the NFL and what he does. Hes mentioned a few times that he feels obligated to cover off the field issues only to the extent they affect play on the field; as someone with no desire to hear about the pecadilloes of wealthy grown men, I appreciate this. Could this get any easier? Shaughnessy wrote. Its a similar story over at the Herald, where old mainstays like Gerry Callahan and Steve Buckley continue to occupy top billing. 1) Ray Fitz. He wrote about some of the famous things he remembered seeing during his years at the Globe, like watching Harvard tie Yale on a 2-point conversion play with no time left on the clock in that famous 29-29 tie in 1968while he was standing in the middle of the field! There are few people on Twitter who are as in-the-know about the NFL as Adam Schefter. I knew Will, he was a regular guy, his fame never over-took him. On the plus side, hes got excellent context for the market, having covered it for so long. I dont see some of the older elitist being so inclined to drop down to the class of the fan. But sad to say, the quality of the current scribes is uneven. What Id like you do is place a comment below in which you list your top three Boston sports columnists of all-time. Instead of focusing on their craft they focus on their next ESPN-NESN-WEEI appearence and their writing suffers because of it. As a young reporter at the Des Moines Register (I was raised a Red Sox fan in Iowa by my Malden-born and Manchester, Conn.-raised father), I had access to the sports wire services. Its not that all the old-timers are badits more that its bad that there are so many old-timers. Love him or hate him, Deion Sanders is actually a pretty good football analyst for the NFL Network. For my part, Ive always appreciated the measured tone which hasnt, for the most part, been impacted by the impatience and urgency of Red Sox Nation. Before that Texans game, for example, Shaughnessy used his column to gleefully ridicule the Patriots opponents, calling them pure frauds. It was the same caustic, one-liner-laden junk hes been peddling for years. Deford was very good---found humor and pathos . Strengths: Tenured reporter with excellent contacts. Montville, Ryan & Fitzgerald& Larry Whiteside should be included on list. Obviously, a lot of young lads weighing in here who do not remember the very best Boston once had Dave Egan, Record; Austen Lake, American; Bill Cunningham, Post and later Herald; Harold Kaese, Transcript and later Globe; Jerry Nason, Globe; Bill Liston, Post.